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What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

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Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#31

Post by iaw »

Ilverin wrote: post #12
jasonmp85 wrote: post #5

> none of the successful dropouts ever went back to school. Bill Gates didn’t go back. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t go back. To go back would imply personal failure. I suppose if you view college solely as a means to an end (success), then sure; however, a liberal education has value in and of itself. But I suppose the above thinking is what we get when we make college a prerequisite for secure employment. People go to col…

An alternative view is: "If you're already successful, everything you could learn at a college you can also learn out of college (see: the internet)".

In my mind it's a question of what the purpose of college is, implicitly there's two sides to the argument:

One enters college to better themselves and for the purpose of a collaborative education.

One enters college to improve their ability to interact with the world in a meaningful fashion.

For those in the former camp, college is a means to an end. Those in the latter value the aspects of a collegial environment that you can't get elsewhere when learning. I find myself in both camps, I'd love to return for a PhD but it's such an economically poor decision that I don't.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#32

Post by throwaway2016a »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #3

It's kind of a big claim, that the most important thing that people got from Thiel Fellowship was the network. If that's really and truly the case, then how is this different from the universities of old? I don't mean that as a challenge. I really do mean to pick it apart. You can argue that this one is more meritocratic. It's also blatantly clear that it had an admissions committee of one. Edit: And as someone else…

I think university networks are overrated a bit. When you're just one of thousands of graduates you need to bring more to the table than just having the same alma mater. All your peers are trying to leverage the same connections to fit through a skinny pipe.

For every one time I leverage my college network I have 10 where I leverage my network I built after college.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#33

Post by throwanem »

jasonmp85 wrote: post #5

> none of the successful dropouts ever went back to school. Bill Gates didn’t go back. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t go back. To go back would imply personal failure. I suppose if you view college solely as a means to an end (success), then sure; however, a liberal education has value in and of itself. But I suppose the above thinking is what we get when we make college a prerequisite for secure employment. People go to col…

Neither is the contempt that moves people to say things like:

> “It’s really the worst when school comes up,” Backus said. “It’s offensive, the way people ask about it.”

"Offensive" is a loaded word, and I wouldn't choose it were I to make a similar statement. But I could make a similar statement, because I'm also familiar with the prejudice that a lot of people have toward those of us who have not completed, or indeed begun, a course of tertiary education.

I'm not a wildly successful entrepreneur, of course. I'm not even an entrepreneur, and I sure as hell don't have a billionaire in my corner. I'm just a redneck with some smarts who's had a whole lot of luck, and managed to parlay those things into an uninspired but solid software engineering career. It surprises me to see that people who are wildly successful entrepreneurs have run into the same prejudice that I've long since grown accustomed to encountering. The old saying is that "nothing succeeds like success", but apparently there are some folks with whom that's just not so.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#34

Post by throwaway2016a »

perfmode wrote: post #30
throwaway2016a wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example: I have an undergrad degree in computer science. I hope to one day be successful enough to get an MBA from MIT or Harvard. Both $100,000+ for a two year program. That may sound funny because if I can afford that tuition without a giant lifestyle change (like selling my house)[1] it means I've already made it, so why do I need to even get the MBA? In fact the average salary for an MBA grad from one of thos…

Often employers foot the bill

Yeah, unfortunately to do that I would have to leave startup life and go work for a corporation which is not a tradeoff I'm ready to make.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#35

Post by tensor »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #18
kesselvon wrote: post #2

Just another front in Thiel's continued war against education. You need an education and experience in order to make the kinds of meaningful breakthroughs we need these days; the valley pushes the college drop-out mythos a little too much.

You need knowledge and smarts, one is given by your genetics the other is free online. "The liberal education" is granfalloon pushed by a rent-seeking administrative and professorial class. When we outlawed IQ tests for employment, we became unable to train engineers and other high-IQ professions in house, as minds capable of doing these jobs are rare, companies need to pre-filter before investing resources. As unive…

No one is threatened by Thiel. Annoyed, yes, but threatened no. Does anyone seriously think that these Thiel payed dropouts are going to be making breakthroughs in physics, engineering, medicine? No, of course not. They'll be in soft positions where their main skill is interacting with people. E.g. CEO, managers, etc.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#36

Post by civilian »

kesselvon wrote: post #2

Just another front in Thiel's continued war against education. You need an education and experience in order to make the kinds of meaningful breakthroughs we need these days; the valley pushes the college drop-out mythos a little too much.

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” - Twain

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#37

Post by dang »

zzzeek wrote: post #7

Brilliant technical minds denied the opportunity to gain awareness of the world through liberal arts exposure, are that much more easily pushed into working towards essentially sociopathic endeavors (like making it easier to sue media outlets wealthy people don't like out of existence).

As a former literature grad student I was liking where the first clause of your sentence was headed, but then you ruined it with the sort of denunciatory name-calling ("sociopathic") that the HN guidelines ask you not to do in comments here. We're trying for a discourse in which people don't hit each other with such sticks, so please don't bring them in to conversation.

Re: What Happened to the Thiel Fellows

#38

Post by maverick_iceman »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #26
jasonmp85 wrote: post #5

> none of the successful dropouts ever went back to school. Bill Gates didn’t go back. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t go back. To go back would imply personal failure. I suppose if you view college solely as a means to an end (success), then sure; however, a liberal education has value in and of itself. But I suppose the above thinking is what we get when we make college a prerequisite for secure employment. People go to col…

For example: I have an undergrad degree in computer science. I hope to one day be successful enough to get an MBA from MIT or Harvard. Both $100,000+ for a two year program. That may sound funny because if I can afford that tuition without a giant lifestyle change (like selling my house)[1] it means I've already made it, so why do I need to even get the MBA? In fact the average salary for an MBA grad from one of thos…

I'm curious why you would do an MBA if not for career advancement. I can see someone going back to school to study something like mathematics/literature because they love the subject but not MBA.
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